Tuning In: Miller offers Celtics a nod

The Miami Heat is the hot pick to win the NBA championship, but TNT analyst Reggie Miller isn’t adding any fuel to that fire.

“To me,” Miller said yesterday in a TNT conference call, “the Celtics are the team to beat.”

With the signings of Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal, Miller believes the Celtics have the size to match up with the Lakers and turn down the Heat. Miller also thinks the creation of the new Big Three in Miami was “the best thing to happen to Boston.

“With everyone,” Miller explained, “talking about the buzz and the hype of the Big Three (in Miami) and the young guns and the super friends and the Three Musketeers, I think it’s lit a fire underneath the Celtics because no longer is everyone talking about the Celtics.”

“If that happens,” Kerr said, “I think they’re the best team in the East and maybe the entire league, but last year, they really wore down as the season went on. They were booed off their home court several times in February and March. They just didn’t have any juice in the tank. Then all of a sudden, they picked it up in the playoffs again, so to me, it’s all about can they peak again at the right time, are they going to get a big year out of (Kevin) Garnett.”

TNT analyst Kevin McHale is an expert on Big Threes. The Celtics great combined with Larry Bird and Robert Parish to form the first one. When he was running the Timberwolves, he dealt Garnett to Boston, which created the second one with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. This season, he’ll analyze the newest Big Three in Miami, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

“You throw the ball out there,” McHale said, “and let us all be 25, and I’ll take my guys.”

McHale’s Big Three won three titles and Garnett’s have won one. Miami’s will play their first regular-season game together in Boston Tuesday night on TNT, and McHale can’t wait.

“Every time you watch LeBron play in person you go, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’,” McHale said. That guy is like phenomenal. I try not to drink the Kool-Aid, but man, I watch him play in person, and I’m guzzling the Kool-Aid. That guys does stuff that is just amazing.”

McHale never considered James to be a great closer, but he ranks Wade as one.

Judging by how much ESPN has hyped the Heat, the network appears ready to hand Miami the NBA championship, but ESPN analysts Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson aren’t. They give the Celtics a good chance of winning it all.

“I think you’d have to give them a real good shot at coming out of the East,” Van Gundy said. “I think they’re one of three teams that can win the championship: Miami, Boston and LA.”

Van Gundy didn’t include the Orlando Magic, coached by his brother Stan, as a legitimate title contender. Jeff Van Gundy puts Orlando fourth on his list, “a little step down.”

But back to the Celtics.

“They have a great chance,” Jackson said, “because of the talent. They’ve gotten older, but they’ve certainly gotten better.”

Last season, injuries dropped the Celtics to fourth in the Eastern Conference standings, but they knocked off higher-seeded Cleveland (with James) and Orlando in the playoffs and took the Lakers to a seventh game before not having home-court advantage finally caught up to them. Celtics coach Doc Rivers insists he won’t allow his team to coast this regular season because he’d prefer to play a Game 7 of the NBA Finals at home.

Jackson thinks the Celtics would be better off forgetting about the No. 1 seed and resting their aging stars on and off throughout the regular season so they’ll be fresh for the playoffs.

“I think with their veteran team,” Jackson said, “it’s not going to matter as much whether they’re home or away. I don’t think having Game 7 in LA cost them the championship. I think Kendrick Perkins going down cost them the championship because they were thoroughly outplaying the Lakers and if you gave them Jermaine O’Neal or Shaquille O’Neal, the Celtics would have won the championship because they would have had a legitimate big and didn’t have to play small. The mindset for them is to continue to look at the finish line, being most prepared and most ready when it matters most.”

“I disagree a little bit with Mark,” Van Gundy said. “I think even if they had lost Kendrick Perkins, and they were at home, they would have found a way to win that Game 7.”

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